Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Biography of Rousseau

Rousseau was born in Geneva, Switzerland, and throughout his life described himself as a citizen of Geneva. His mother, Suzanne Bernard Rousseau, died a week later due to complications from childbirth, and his father Isaac, a failed watchmaker, abandoned him in 1722 to avoid imprisonment for fighting a duel. His childhood education consisted solely of reading Plutarch's Lives and Calvinist sermons.

Related Topics:
Geneva - Switzerland - Suzanne Bernard Rousseau - 1722 - Plutarch - Lives - Calvinist

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Rousseau left Geneva on March 14, 1728, after several years of apprenticeship to a notary and then an engraver. He then met Françoise-Louise de Warens, a French Catholic baroness who would later became Rousseau's lover, even though she was twelve years his elder. Under the protection of de Warens, he converted to Catholicism.

Related Topics:
March 14 - 1728 - Apprenticeship - Françoise-Louise de Warens - French - Catholic - Catholicism

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Rousseau spent a few weeks in seminary and beginning in 1729 six months at the Annecy Cathedral choir school. As well, he spent much time travelling and engaging in a variety of professions; for instance, in the early 1730s he worked as a music teacher in Chambéry. In 1736 he enjoyed a last stay with de Warens near Chambéry, which he found idyllic, but by 1740 he had departed again, this time to Lyon to tutor the young children of Gabriel Bonnet de Mably.

Related Topics:
Seminary - 1729 - Annecy Cathedral - 1730s - Chambéry - 1736 - Lyon - Gabriel Bonnet de Mably

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In 1742 Rousseau moved to Paris in order to present the Académie des Sciences with a new system of musical notation he had invented, which was rejected as useless and unoriginal. From 1743 to 1744, he was secretary to the French ambassador in Venice, whose republican government Rousseau would refer to often in his later political work. After this, he returned to Paris, where he befriended and lived with Thérèse Lavasseur, an illiterate seamstress who bore him five children. As a result of his theories on education and child-rearing, Rousseau has often been criticized by Voltaire and modern commentators for putting his children in an orphanage as soon as they were weaned. In his defense, Rousseau explained that he would have been a poor father, and that the children would have a better life at the foundling home.

Related Topics:
1742 - Académie des Sciences - 1743 - 1744 - Venice - Republican - Thérèse Lavasseur - Voltaire

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While in Paris, he became friends with Diderot and beginning in 1749 contributed several articles to his Encyclopédie, beginning with some articles on music. His most important contribution was an article on political economy, written in 1755. Soon after, his friendship with Diderot and the Encyclopedists would become strained.

Related Topics:
Diderot - 1749 - Encyclopédie - 1755

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In 1749, on his way to Vincennes to visit Diderot in prison, Rousseau heard of an essay competition sponsored by the Académie de Dijon, asking the question whether the development of the arts and sciences has been morally beneficial. Rousseau's response to this prompt, answering in the negative, was his 1750 "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences", which won him first prize in the contest and gained him significant fame.

Related Topics:
1749 - Vincennes - Académie de Dijon - 1750

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Rousseau claimed that during the carriage ride to visit Diderot, he had experienced a sudden inspiration on which all his later philosophical works were based. This inspiration, however, did not cease his interest in music and in 1752 his opera Le Devin du village was performed for King Louis XV.

Related Topics:
1752 - King Louis XV

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In 1754, Rousseau returned to Geneva, where he reconverted to Calvinism and regained his official Genevan citizenship. In 1755 Rousseau completed his second major work, the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. Beginning with this piece, Rousseau's work found him increasingly in disfavor with the French government.

Related Topics:
1754 - Calvinism

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Rousseau in 1761 published the successful romantic novel Nouvelle Heloise (The New Heloise). In 1762 he published two major books, first The Social Contract (Du Contrat Social) in April and then Emile, or On Education in May. Both books criticized religion and were banned in both France and Geneva. Rousseau was forced to flee arrest and made stops in both Bern and Motiers in Switzerland. While in Motiers, Rousseau wrote the Constitutional Project for Corsica (Projet de Constitution pour la Corse).

Related Topics:
1761 - 1762 - Bern - Motiers - Switzerland

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Facing criticism in Switzerland – his house in Motiers was stoned in 1765 – Rousseau in January of 1766 took refuge in with the philosopher David Hume in Great Britain, but after 18 months he left because he believed Hume was plotting against himhttp://www.connect.net/ron/davidhume.html.

Related Topics:
1765 - 1766 - Philosopher - David Hume - Great Britain

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Rousseau returned to France under the name "Renou," although officially he was not allowed back in until 1770. In 1768 he married Thérèse, and in 1770 he returned to Paris. As a condition of his return, he was not allowed to publish any books, but after completing his Confessions, Rousseau began private readings. In 1771 he was forced to stop this, and this book, along with all subsequent ones, was not published until after his death in 1782.

Related Topics:
1770 - 1768 - 1771 - 1782

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Rousseau continued to write until his death. In 1772, he was invited to present recommendations for a new constitution for Poland, resulting in the Considerations on the Government of Poland, which was to be his last major political work. In 1776 he completed Dialogues: Rousseau Judge of Jean-Jacques and began work on the Reveries of the Solitary Walker. In order to support himself through this time, he returned to copying music. Because of his partially-justified paranoia, he did not seek attention or the company of others. While taking a morning walk on the estate of the Marquis de Giradin at Ermenonville (28 miles northeast of Paris), Rousseau suffered a hemorrhage and died on July 2, 1778.

Related Topics:
1772 - Poland - 1776 - Ermenonville - Paris - July 2 - 1778

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Rousseau was initially buried on the Ile des Peupliers. His remains were moved to the Panthéon in Paris in 1794, sixteen years after his death. The tomb was designed to resemble a rustic temple, to recall Rousseau's theories of nature. In 1834, the Genevan government reluctantly erected a statue in his honor on the tiny Ile Rousseau in Lake Geneva. In 2002, the Espace Rousseau was established at 40 Grand-Rue, Geneva, Rousseau's birthplace.

Related Topics:
The Panthéon - 1794 - 1834 - Ile Rousseau - Lake Geneva - 2002 - Espace Rousseau

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